PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, his party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) – and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were united in the adoption of their final addresses at the Presidential Election Petitions’ Court (PEPC) on Thursday.
They submitted that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, failed to disprove the claim that he is not a Nigerian by birth and therefore, not qualified to have contested in the election.
Buhari, the APC and INEC described the petition by Atiku and the PDP challenging the outcome of the election as worthless and time wasting. They noted that the petitioner, in prosecuting the petition, starved it of necessary evidence and urged the court to dismiss it with substantial cost.
They noted that while the petitioners – Atiku and PDP – made wild allegations in their petition, they provided no single evidence in support of their claims and therefore, failed to meet the required standard of proof in relation to all the allegations.
Buhari, APC and INEC spoke before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) as all parties to the petition adopted their final written addresses and made final submissions yesterday.
The PEPC, presided over by Justice Mohammed Garba, adjourned for judgment, until a date to be communicated to the parties.
At Wednesday’s sitting, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) led Buhari’s legal team, which included Alex Izinyon (SAN). Yunus Usman (SAN) led INEC’s team; Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) led the team of the APC, while Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) led the petitioners’ team, which included Mike Ozekhome (SAN).
In relation to the APC’s challenge of Atiku’s qualification, Fagbemi, in his final submission, argued that neither Atiku nor the PDP disproved all the issues the 3rd respondent (APC) raised about Atiku’s qualification to contest for the office of the President, not being a Nigerian by birth.
Fagbemi said: “On the qualification of the 1st petitioners (Atiku), in spite of all we put before the court, they provided nothing to the contrary. What we need is minimal proof. Nothing was put forward in the petitioners’ written address to counter this. And, I must commend them, because they have nothing to offer.
“In that respect, the 3rd respondent has discharged the burden on that. The issue of the 1st petitioner’s non-qualification is effectively dealt with in our written address.”
He also argued that the petitioners’ failed to prove the challenge of the conduct of the election by not providing necessary evidence to support their claim of non-compliance, corruption, among others.
Fagbemi argued that, for the petitioners to fault INEC’s position, “they have the burden to show substantial non-compliance. They failed to do this. The implication therefore, is that there was substantial compliance with the Electoral Act in the conduct of the last presidential election.”
He noted that, while the petitioners’ challenged the election held in I19, 973 polling units, cutting across 8809 polling units in 774 local government area of the country, they only called 62 witnesses, out of which, only five were relevant.
Fagbemi added: “It is sad that they only called 63 witnesses. We have supplied a table to show that, out of this figure (63 witnesses), only five gave direct evidence of what happened at the polling units. In a matter as grave and grievous as this, the expectation of the law is that polling unit agents or voters ought to be called in the affected polling units.
He faulted the petitioners’ claim that Buhari made false claim about his educational qualification and argued that it was immaterial whether or not the President present a certificate in the face of the concrete evidence provided by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) to the effect that the result of the school certificate examination submitted by the President were authentic.
Fagbemi argued that, since those who set examination standard – WAEC – has confirmed the authenticity of the secondary school result submitted by the third respondent, there could be nothing more to the issue.
On Buhari’s qualification, the senior advocate added that even if the President had submitted a certificate and WAEC failed to authenticate it, it would be taken as such.
Olanipekun, who spoke earlier, argued that not only did the petitioners fail proving their case, they sought prayers that could not be granted.
He said: “Apart from the hype being generated, there is nothing in law that will make this court grant any of the reliefs being sought by the petitioners. Of the few election petitions and cases that I have handled, this is one case that has been prosecuted looking for evidence, yearning for evidence for support, crying to high heavens for assistance, and which assistance will never come.
“They are talking of server. Where is the server? That is a million-dollar question. Did the server exist only between Atiku and Buhari? What about the other parties that contested the election?”
He contended that the petition only made claim about the existence of a server which they could not prove.
Olanipekun argued that his client was not required by the Constitution to submit a certificate to INEC.
He said: “It is our contention that the second respondent (Buhari) cannot go outside the provision of Section 131, read together with Section 131(8) of the Constitution. And the case law is replete with the decisions of this court on the subject. The constitution and case law do not expect any certificate to be tendered or to be attached. We cannot change the case law and amend the Constitution.”
Olanipekun cited a recent decision of the Court of Appeal in a case by Senator Ademola Adeleke, where it said all that was required to qualify for the office of governor is to be educated up to secondary school level.
He noted that while Adeleke, who contested the last Osun State governorship election as a candidate of the PDP was pronounced qualified by the Court of Appeal, even when he only sat for only English Language and scored F9, it was ridiculous for the same PDP to argue that Buhari, who passed all his subjects, was not qualified.
Olanipekun, who argued that the petitioners contradicted themselves in many ways, noted that while Atiku and the PDP, in their petition, conceded the election results from 13 states, they still went ahead to call four witnesses from Katsina, which is one of the states they admitted that Buhari defeated them.
Usman, while praying the court to dismiss the petition, submitted that INEC conducted the presidential election on February 23, in total compliance with the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, adding that the petitioners failed to disprove that.
“The issue of transmission of election result via server or electronically is the greatest lie in this century. And they claimed it related to only two political parties – the PDP and APC. As far as they are concerned, only Atiku and Buhari contested the election
“Assuming that results were transmitted electronically, which is not the case, the Electoral Act itself prohibits the transmission of results electronically. The Act and the INEC Election Manual only provide for manual collation and transmission of election results, and that was only what INEC did.
“And that was what their witnesses admitted under cross-examination. There was a bill before the National Assembly, which sought electronic transmission of results, but the bill did not see the light of the day. The petitioners failed to bring that fact to the court’s attention.”
Usman argued that, as against the petitioners’ claim, INEC did not abandon its pleading; it only extracted salient evidence from their witnesses.
He added: “It would have been a waste of the court’s time to call witnesses when the petitioners admitted the issues we advanced in our pleadings.
“We urge this court to dismiss the petition which was meant (by the petitioners) to test the water with two legs and they are now falling.”
In his counter argument, Uzokwu prayed the court to grant all his clients’ prayers on the grounds that they have sufficiently proved their case.
He argued that the respondents trivialised the issue of qualification which is fundamental to the petition. He further argued that the respondents failed to appreciate the fundamental nature of Section 138(1) of the Electoral Act that election can be challenged where somebody made false information in an affidavit to INEC.
Uzoukwu, who faulted Buhari’s defence to the petitioners’ claim that he did not have a certificate, wondered why it was convenient for the President, who is the Commander in Chief, to travel to Cambridge to fetch his secondary school result, when he could have simply directed the military to release the certificates he claimed to have deposited with the Nigerian Army.
On the petitioners’ claim about the existence server, Uzoukwu argued that it was shameful that INEC did not admit that it has a central server. He contended that the denial by INEC could have been because it did not understand what a server is.
Uzoukwu said: “A server is nothing but a storage device. It is a computer. Is INEC denying that it does not have computer? INEC stored information about voters’ registration on its server. Where are they storing data from PVCs, running into millions? It is in the server.
“To claim that INEC does not have a facility for storage of data in its office is laughable and tragic and it goes against the claim of neutrality of INEC.”